


Inside, Outside

by queen_mycroft



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Character Study, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, First Time, Flashbacks, Grief, Guilt, Intimacy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Origin Story, Porn With Plot, Prison Sex, Regret, Self-Hatred, Smut, Spoilers, Unresolved Sexual Tension, dubcon elements but totally consensual, some conversations about their relationship, sorry abt the multiple character tags i wasnt sure what to use, spoilers for s2e6 and e7 and e8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 02:07:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15184397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_mycroft/pseuds/queen_mycroft
Summary: Their bodies were like static. Hernan felt that in the spaces between them and doors and windows, like they could phase right through the chains and the bullshit.I am who I am, B.Comanche was trying to tell him something then. Your skin is my skin. Your eyes are my eyes. I knew you before you was you.Shades only has hazy memories left. In them are a spattering of distinct thoughts, flashing hot and bright in a muddying area of gray, where love met internal chaos and still couldn't quite disengage. Is it wrong to be ashamed of starvation? Should he have beaten down any weakness? Massacred the truth? Don't lose me, baby. Lemon juice and sugar water. That's all it is. That's the game. We'll be bigger than this shit. Bigger than the whole world, you and me.***How they got together. Or: an exploration of what Shades won't do for Comanche.Told throughout childhood, Seagate Penitentiary, and the present.





	Inside, Outside

**Author's Note:**

> DO NOT READ IF U HAVENT WATCHED THRU S2E8 for your benefit
> 
> I find this pairing so poignant. Not only concerning what they chose to do with Shades' sexuality but what the showrunners did with that scene at the barbershop. The subtlety and respect towards the characters - actually pursuing a realistic homoerotic reading between the two friends - was admirable. In just that scene, you can kind of see the whole landscape of who Che and Shades are as people. I adored it and am so interested in other people's thoughts on their relationship, so feel free to start a discussion with me in the comments!!! (abt anything that happened this season, not just shades/comanche lol)
> 
> More on the note of my story... I chose to use Shades' real name throughout the scenes with Comanche because I felt that that's who Shades felt like when he was with Che. It was really evident to me that Che had an ability to access something in Shades that Mariah didn't (emotional caution? thoughtfulness?), due to the history they shared. And I was interested in exploring how someone who is arguably an evil person could have healthy relationships. My main goal is always to retain the voice of each character and I PRAY I have done that.
> 
> It was really exciting to write this. Tons of first for me: first extensive sex scene, first queer man of color in a fanfic, and first time doing a "villain" pairing. First time writing a canonical gay pairing, come to think of it.... yikes lmao
> 
> I really hope y'all enjoy. :)

Shades is still here. Forthright. He'd never known exposure - under those glasses, he couldn't - but here he was, raw like a wound in the Southern sun, kicking up dust under naked fluorescents. He's still here but he's obtained a certain fallible affectation. His hands quiver if they're not pressed flat against the table. 

"Why did you kill your boy?" Mercedes Knight thumbs the manila folder open with the hand that's still flesh, and then tosses it onto the cold metal table where Shades is being flayed to the bone, ripped open like a plastic casing. He thinks that he'd rather put out his hands in willful surrender and go back to Seagate... than to look... to look at...

Comanche's eyes are still open. It's so fresh that the blood hasn't yet dried in the center, where it sputtered and welled out of the hole in his gut like hot, red tears, endlessly pooling, not unlike the hundreds of others he'd encountered, but not exactly similar, not exactly reminiscent of any wound he'd ever seen, either. Che just kept bleeding. Hands on his stomach and gasping listlessly like a child, once again rendered helpless after years of hardening - open the shell up, and that's where you find the meat of the clam, the juices.

Ain't it some shit that he spent his whole childhood learning how to keep Che safe.

Shades was still learning when this went down; now he's gonna have to learn how to shake Comanche off like a second skin. The terrible, perfect humor of it strikes him: as if it were ever possible for someone like him to know loss and not be assaulted by a ceaseless thirst for revenge... he would raze villages for Comanche. He would kill every warden. Every gatekeeper. Every murderer he'd taken money from, every connection to wealth. He would choke the life out of them with his bare hands and have bullets left to spare.

What the fuck does he do in the silence? Knowing that someone killed Comanche but being unable to contribute to their suffering tenfold. Forever looking Che's killer in the eyes but never capable of ripping out their teeth and putting their bloated head on a pike.

Shades spreads his fingers on the photograph. It feels like he is touching him again.

***

Rackham makes them clean up the basement after tournaments. There's blood on the mat where the matches go on and on, round after round, smudged and spattered and deliciously red. After they drag the wrecked bodies of limp and castrated inmates out the door, empty the warehouse-sized room of spectators, it's just him and Che under the fluorescents. No security cameras. No jeering, no noise.

They get on their knees in the ring with peroxide and brushes and violently scrub the bloody canvas. They don't speak. Hernan doesn't look at him unless he knows that Comanche is turned away, and he never catches Che's gaze unless Che is asking for more peroxide. All he hears is _sch-ch sch-ch sch-ch sch-ch_ reverberate in the dimly lit, empty concrete room.

Hours later, Hernan grabs a splintering, leaking bucket of dirty water, jumps onto the platform, and slides under the ropes while Che watches him wordlessly below. It's this palpable, solid gaze, a natural chaser to the tenseness between them all night, pulling Hernan apart steadily. Che has only given him this look a handful of times: like he knows something that Hernan doesn't, and he's quietly lording it over him, reveling in the way that Hernan is close to figuring it out but futilely chasing the answer as it blunders farther and farther away. He makes him feel like he's a little kid again, sometimes. Like he's still in Ponce, and sitting with his _abuela_ in the sun-spotted living room. She used to pet his hair. _Mi hombrecito._ My little man.

"What," he says, slowly tipping over the bucket while trading glances between the pink-grey water and Che's dark, dark eyes. "What you gotta say?"

It's the whole surrealistic batshit craziness of the whole thing - he projects power to the other prisoners, but in the dark, he's really just an unsightly janitor for a sure sadist. Hernan ain't a sadist. That much, he fucking knows. Because at night he misses the stars of the Puerto Rican coastline and he dreams about his mother cooking dinner for him and when he's alone he thinks of all the blood on his hands and how he's never meant anything to anyone he hasn't pushed away. His insides are mush. Lost and longing. And he can't let Che see that but every day it seems he gets a little closer while Hernan loses it, slowly. Like Che's been feeling the terrain for twenty years and this is where he raids the stash, kills the witnesses, dumps the bodies, leaves Hernan to lie, witless.

Power is fickle. He ain't got none when Che peers right through him, knows him well. His pulse now thumps in a way that it hasn't in a while.

"I ain't got shit to say," Che responds, low.

"Don't bullshit me."

"I ain't, man." His eyes are so dark. His skin: just a muddle of inky shapes cut by harsh white light. A paragon of endless curiosity for Hernan. He's always felt that way. He cleaves away the shell to get close. He watches him while he watches elsewhere because that's the only way he can convey, without guilt, without pretense - the truth of it, in full relief, nameless and nebulous and confusing as it is.

Hernan's whole body warms over as he suddenly becomes aware that he's been staring for ten unbroken seconds, frozen. And then he can't even look because looking would be self-mutilation.

"Looks like you the one who got shit to say, Shades."

A misplaced anger flares up in Hernan's veins. Because the way he's seeing it, it's like this: Comanche does his little performance to set the trap, to get Hernan in fucking heat, and then he pulls back just when Hernan _needs_ it. Just to expose him, just to coax him out. Hernan says nothing but dumps the whole bucket onto the ring, sloshing the water over the sides too fast for Che to jump back. He tries, but the rank liquid soils his tennis shoes.

"Nigga, for real?" Che cries. "For real. You gonna do that. Knowing that the warden already 'bouta put me in solitary for what I did last week to Hollis."

Hernan drops the bucket right in the center of the ring with a dull clatter and paces off without a word. It feels like his skin is tingling inside out. Like he swallowed Icy-Hot.

Che keeps talking at the back of his head as he walks off. _"Damn,_ Shades. You don't talk for three fuckin' hours and now you struttin' off. Disrespect. I see. I see."

And what he's trying not to say... what he's trying not to say is eating up his stomach. _I'm fucking done with this place and between the walls and you I'm losing my mind. I lose my mind when I'm close to you. I wanna find inside of you the boy I used to be and instead all I see is my future, stretched out far in front of us both, heads on a swivel, ain't trustin' nobody but each other. And how could I bite that off and swallow it, baby? When I know that I'll never touch you long enough to sate the itch that's been fucking up my insides since day one?_

When it becomes clear to Comanche that Hernan won't address him, won't look at what he's done, he riles. Starts yelling in earnest. "You mad? You mad, B?" And then he's breaking into a jog, chasing after him, as Hernan scrambles to get away without running. "I see you. Acting like you know what the fuck is going on. Tryna kill niggas in jail and shit, like you don't give a shit if you get out or not." Che catches up so fast, fast enough that Hernan can't even open the door to leave before Che is at his neck. His voice is low and cutting, here. "Everyone think you the fuckin' king. Nah. Nah, man. You a fuckin' weak pussy. You losin' it in here. You're so fuckin' scared of being real with me that you can't even look me in my face."

Right on his spine, Comanche's breath blows hot. "We're brothers. You look me in my face."

***

Their bodies were like static. Hernan felt that in the spaces between them and doors and windows, like they could phase right through the chains and the bullshit.

_I am who I am, B._

Comanche was trying to tell him something then. _Your skin is my skin. Your eyes are my eyes. I knew you before you was you._

Shades only has hazy memories left. In them are a spattering of distinct thoughts, flashing hot and bright in a muddying area of gray, where love met internal chaos and still couldn't quite disengage. Is it wrong to be ashamed of starvation? Should he have beaten down any weakness? Massacred the truth? _Don't lose me, baby. Lemon juice and sugar water. That's all it is. That's the game. We'll be bigger than this shit. Bigger than the whole world, you and me._

_I was gonna get us both out._ That's what Comanche had struggled to say through the heady agony of it all. With such wanting. With such willing acquiescence.

Shades should have told him: _I know, baby. I know you were._

***

He always fronts because he can't see past fronting. Because he doesn't understand it. He's never felt this way about anyone and it's his luck that he's desperate for something nobody is gonna give him, that no wealth will buy back, that no bullet holes will coerce. If lying is the only way, then he'll make it the truth.

He always has. When Hernan was a kid that barely had scars, just scratches and bruises, Che would stay quiet as he snuck into Hernan's room in the early mornings, before the sun rose. He vividly remembers one morning that Che and he had been struggling over an action figure - in the dark, Che had solidly connected with a scabbed wound on Hernan's brow bone, knocking him back into the wall with a burst of pain. Hernan remembers how the blood dripped down his eyelid so fast - like ice cream off a cone on a hot day.

Being elbowed in the face had shocked him, embarrassed him; he'd teared wildly, unable to articulate to Che what had happened or why he felt so maligned, so abused. He still barely knew himself. He wouldn't have been able to explain it to anyone.

"Hernan," Che'd choked out in the dark, almost panicked, scrambling across the floor to reach him. "Hold up, lemme check it out." He'd stuck his thumb in his mouth fast and reached out to cradle Hernan's head with the other hand - but Hernan had jerked away, fixing Comanche with shining, distrustful eyes. Hernan remembers the long moment of tense silence between them, and how Che had put up his palms, as if to say: _I'd never let no one near you. I'd never let nobody hurt you._ Like a man wrangling in a hurt lamb.

The moment of apprehension passed. "Close y' eye," Che had whispered. Hernan obeyed; felt Che sweep his thumb, wet with saliva, over Hernan's eyelid. Felt him gingerly apply pressure to the wound while Hernan trusted him blind, allowed him to take his head in his hands and dress the wounds with his spit and quiet tenderness.

Something in Hernan's stomach had jolted. He remembered being overwhelmed by the sensation of Che's hand cupping his jaw. It felt even worse than being elbowed, somehow, like that had been an unfortunate accident but this was some premeditated, sadistic, sick shit, designed to stir up both a wanton pleasure and a deeply rooted discomfort; a sensation wildly irreconcilable with the truth he knew of himself. "It's all gone," Che had desperately whispered, practically pleading. "You ain't bleeding no more." He still held Hernan's jaw in his palm. "You good, dog."

He hadn't been able to move, then. The most terrible thing about the whole incident was that once all the blood was wiped away, he was still himself, not at all transformed and somehow more wildly confused; perhaps if he had moved, something would have splintered inside of him that he feared looking at. Maybe he was terrified that if he moved then the spell would be broken and Che would go away and wouldn't care if he bled, anymore, as if Hernan had cashed it all in for this one epitomizing moment.

He just stared up at Che and really hoped that he wouldn't ever lose him. Really hoped he'd die young so he wouldn't know the pain of giving this up, the steadiest thing in his life, the only thing worth keeping for himself.

"You good?" He sounded scared. "I didn't mean to. I swear. Don't be mad, B."

"'M good," he'd lied wetly. He fronted because the alternative was to lose his shit. Just fucking lose his shit.

In a lot of ways, he feels just the same as he had that night twenty years ago. He's got real scars, now. Scars from tire irons and bullet wounds and badly sewn stitches and gnarled knuckles. Hernan had to forge his identity. Pick it up from the dirt and shape it into something wearable. Right now he feels like he ain't got skin, like Comanche doused him in acid and it's all melting off and leaving bared what's raw and gruesome. Bare knuckles against Che's gums, fingers wrung tightly around his neck, his blood in Hernan's mouth; if that's the truth of it - he can't be too close without the hate following after - he'll accept that shit, too.

His breath still hitches as he turns to look. Comanche is inches away. His body is a black silhouette smothering Hernan in darkness. "Something's got you tight, Che?" he asks mockingly, forcing his voice to stay low and even.

Che grunts and shoves Hernan, hard; he slams right into the wall by the door. Hernan has no recourse. No idea what to do except ridicule. The scathing heat in Hernan's voice picks up with his anxiety. "You're fucking _delusional,_ Comanche," his voice strains, "if you think that I'm scared of shit. Because I ain't fuckin' scared and you better not fuckin' touch me again."

"You don't want me to touch you, nigga?" Comanche threatens, stepping even closer. "You don't want me to-" He darts his right hand out so fast that Hernan barely has time to calculate where it's going before he catches Che's wrist firmly in his fingers; but Che is unreasonably strong and wrenches his arm away only to take Hernan's wrist in his and drive it painfully into the concrete wall above their heads. On blind and desperate impulse, Hernan attempts to shove him off with his other hand, and Che captures that arm, too, grunting from the effort of forcing it away while Hernan struggles wildly to break free. Che's scent is overpowering. There's nowhere to look except at him.

His arms are shaking from the effort of trying to get Che to back off. It's this odd, interminable volley of force; Che struggles to reach out but can't quite get leverage, exhaling sharply every time Hernan shoves back. Che grows impatient. Suddenly he's up in Hernan's face, close enough to touch noses, and his hand is on Hernan's neck, and Hernan goes to pull his hand off but all the fight in him rushes out of his mouth in a shaky gasp when he sees Che seeing him.

He feels like this is the first time he's ever been awake. He tries to say "don't touch me" but doesn't. He tries to move but doesn't. It's just them, frozen, now, trading breath for breath. Hernan's left hand is resting on the fingers pressed into his throat and he can feel Che's pulse hammering into his and it's all just too much for a moment; he didn't think this through; Che's closeness and domination is threatening and exciting and his body responds to the stimuli in ways it hasn't in months. He swallows hard and exhales from his nose when he realizes exactly what's happening to his dick. Mortifyingly, loud enough that Che cocks his head and furrows his brow deeply at the sound.

He searches Che's eyes for leniency and finds none. Just an impenetrable, opaque blackness. Che's hand relaxes from his throat but he maintains the unrelenting stare, the overwhelming proximity. "I see right through you." His voice is dark as sin. A vice around Hernan's throat. "You think I'm fuckin' blind, huh? You think I don't see through that shit?"

Hernan has no choice but to ask. He doesn't know what else to do. "What the fuck are you _talking_ about?" His body quivers against the cold concrete, yet he still tries for cruelty.

Che's voice is accusatory. Low. "You know." Like: _don't act. Don't act like you ain't guilty, like you ain't been planning this from the jump._ "Stop" - he shifts impossibly closer, maintaining searing eye contact - "playin' games. I know you like I know my own skin. Like no one else."

"You know me, huh?" Hernan says, smiling, but the smirk soon turns wistful, exposed, rank. He watches Che watch him mentally lose it. He wants this to be over. All the times he denied himself the truth, said he was doing this to stay sane to hide the brutal fact of it, that he just wanted Comanche with a palpability akin to a one-two knockout punch. And _fuck._ Fuck this bullshit, this back-and-forth of vague facade. "You don't know shit, Che." He attempts being aloof but the coolness falls apart in his mouth, revealing bitterness, repugnant vulnerability. _If you knew anything you'd back away. You'd know I'm hard for you._

"I don't know shit?"

His words dance the thin line between aggression and hopelessness. "You seriously, genuinely have no goddamn clue."

"I do." Che presses so close that the outside of his thigh grazes Hernan's erection. Hernan tries not to gasp aloud but can't stop the sharp exhale of breath from being forced out of his nose.

His grip tightens on Che's wrist. "You don't." It's almost a desperate, pathetic plea, now.

Che's hand shifts. Spreads out on his chest. Slides up to his jaw, fingers pressing into the skin behind his ear. "I do," Che explains.

The whole pretense is suddenly futile. Hernan fucking unravels. Softly: "No, you don't, baby."

Those words are taboo. Che pauses for a moment, seemingly struck. His eyelashes flutter. There is a gut-plunging pause, where Hernan curses internally for giving in, for showing himself; he wants to brush it off, but can't, not convincingly-

Che thumbs his chin, stroking yesterday's five o'clock shadow, and then draws a tentative line upward, into the curve of Hernan's mouth. Everything goes haywire, blurry as shit. Hernan doesn't know if he's allowed to respond or acknowledge what he's feeling; he just lets Che peel back his lip with his thumb and says nothing. His hand is still wrapped around Che's wrist when Che slips two fingers in Hernan's mouth and exhales shakily as Che watches him gladly receive it. His brow is furrowed, almost disbelieving, as he watches Hernan suck the pads of his fingers. Gutting pangs of arousal are hitting Hernan in waves. He's pliant and will take anything, at this point, even if it's not much, even if it's painful.

_I've needed this since I knew need, baby,_ Hernan wants to explain. He tastes like clean sweat and soap and Hernan takes it down to the knuckle, slipping his tongue between Che's index and middle finger. _Does that make sense? To want that? I wake up so fucking hard. I can't front, this time. I'd die for you._

Hernan isn't even undressed and he has never felt so debauched. When Che's fingers slip out with an obscene noise, everything goes quiet. It's almost as if Che is processing it, too. His whole face is twisted by arousal and desire and deep, deep bewilderment, as if he himself was not expecting this; the idea that Comanche is burned as raw and tender as he is thrills Hernan, only makes him want it more. Comanche strokes his bottom lip like he doesn't believe it's real and he's verifying it for himself. It feels like the world has crumbled away.

This is the truth of it. When Comanche kisses him, swelling his tongue against Hernan's, thumb placed soothingly at the corner of his mouth, the feeling resembles falling prey to exhaustion, being swallowed by warmth and relief. And when Che finds the spot at the corner of his jawbone and sucks - it feels like being woken with a blowtorch against his temples. The sickly sweetness of it all. Hernan feels all the air in his lungs come out of his mouth in a choked "unh" when Che tongues his earlobe, pulling it into his mouth and dragging his teeth over the sensitive skin. The hand that isn't pinned to the wall flies to the back of Che's neck, and Che kisses him wildly, now, alternating between short, praising presses of his lips to Hernan's and a love-sick, desperate slowness that gets Hernan's cock throbbing from need. Che tastes intoxicating. It's a new experience - acquainting himself with this aspect of his friend after knowing him only as one unattainable thing for so long. He gains an extra dimension when he meets Hernan's tongue with his own and sucks at the tip, eliciting a loud, rasping moan from the former.

Speaking could taint the whole thing. Saying what he needs might give perspective to this, give Comanche a reason to reconsider - he says nothing and lets Che take from him what he wants without thinking about what's next. Which is why it's surprising that Che preempts his thoughts mid-kiss by reaching down and palming Hernan's dick gently through his jumpsuit. Hernan instinctively jerks back like he's touched something searingly hot. A branding iron right into his abdomen.

Che feels his reaction and pulls away. There's a moment between them where Comanche doesn't understand; he watches Hernan, trying to gauge what he has done wrong and how to continue. And yet another part of his gaze reads: _You're so goddamn hard._

When Hernan kisses him slowly, reassuringly, Che trembles.

It's fucking endearing. Through heady arousal there is fondness, unapologetic affection. His lips are worshipping. The inherent eroticism of the moment falls away to reveal adoration, dependency. Instead of rubbing Hernan's erection with the heel of his palm, he unbuttons Hernan's shirt and lifts his prison thermal off, over his head, immediately kissing an open-mouthed line down Hernan's neck, to the center of his chest. There is a brief hesitation where they both breathe heavily in apprehension, ravaged arousal - Hernan didn't know that this is what he needed until his eyes fly open and he is watching Che close his mouth around one dark nipple. He bucks almost wildly from the sensation of it, filthy and shameless wet circles being traced into his skin. He almost curses but can't really fathom anything as he slams his head back into the wall and vocalizes reedily. If he didn't know better, he'd think Che was grinning at his reaction. He can definitely sense Comanche's hand spread across his abdomen, forcefully keeping him still as he draws Hernan's peaked nipple into his mouth and gently bites.

No one has ever done this for him. He's unraveling and Comanche is keeping him upright, somehow. He feeds the same two fingers into Hernan's mouth and pulls away just to twist at the painfully sensitive peak with wet fingers. He brushes it with his chin when he looks up at Hernan. And oh, _shit._ The look in Che's eyes is flagrantly needy, subservient, as if he has never desired anything more than his mouth working Hernan's skin in the quiet. His intentions laid bare kind of destroy Hernan. Enough that he forgets himself and places his hand on the back of Che's skull, where he feels coarse curls under his palm.

They don't need to say anything. Che understands and quickly makes work of Hernan's jumpsuit, unzipping it, peeling it back, and pulling down Hernan's boxers.

Immediately, Che's hand is on his cock, pumping long, even strokes, thumb passing over the head with so much unexpected spontaneity that Hernan almost _shouts,_ going boneless, cock swelling with his breath. It's a strangled, embarrassing sound, one that he internalized during boozy one night stands with faceless women. And Che doesn't even give a shit. He takes that moment to hold down the base of Hernan's dick and work his mouth around it, swallowing the head with a choked gag when it hits the back of his throat. His eyes furrow in concentration for a few choice moments as he struggles to create a rhythm - but then he finds it, blown out eyes drifting up to find Hernan watching him. Hernan has lost it. Officially. 'Cuz this ain't fuckin' real life: Che going down on him, dutifully, taking his cock in the slick heat of his mouth like communion, like it's the only thing that will deliver them. He's so appreciative. Hums when Hernan involuntarily bucks into his mouth, precome mixing with saliva on his tongue.

When Che pulls off to spit onto Hernan's cock head, rubbing short strokes into his slit, Hernan can't stay quiet, anymore. "So good, baby," he rasps out. Che doesn't smile. Just runs the flat of his tongue along the underside of Hernan's shaft, drooling from the heat of it, juices dripping onto his soft bottom lip. He works Hernan's cock until it's a dark pink, flushed and so, so hard - kissing it, worshipping it, all without laying a hand on himself.

_Let me,_ Che's eyes read. _I want to so bad. All for you._

They're right next to the light switches. Che reaches up and flicks off the main fluorescents, so the whole warehouse-sized room is flooded in darkness, the only light in the room emanating from the back, where a large system of power converters link together. The regulators glow a deep orange, casting Che's face in warm light.

Hernan doesn't understand for a second - and then he understands all at once. When Che draws himself into a stand, he's met immediately by Hernan's hand opening the bottom-most button on his jumpsuit and slipping his hand into the slit, where Che's cock is hard and huge, pulsating and slick with sweat and precome. Che groans and steels himself against the wall, leaning his forearms against the concrete and letting Hernan take control of his body for an intoxicating moment. Hernan is so split between getting his jumpsuit off and working Che into a pulp that for a moment he can't do either, and he breathes hard into Che's neck before licking a stripe up the stringent muscle and working through Che's buttons one-by-one. He nearly rips the jumpsuit when he pulls it over his shoulders and down his arms. He yanks the fabric down to Che's thighs in a moment of pure anticipation, and then when presented with the round, toned flesh of Che's ass, he doesn't know what to do next. He's thought about it abstractly, but never played with the idea of it, or even considered trying it on a woman.

But Hernan wants to be inside Comanche. If not for the pleasure of it, then to say: _I've got you. I've got you 'til the world ends for both of us. 'Til I bleed out saying your name._ "You gonna spit on your fingers." Hernan whips his head up to look at Comanche, who isn't making eye contact and has only spoken just now, to give direction. "Put them in my ass 'till I'm stretched out."

Somehow his words make Hernan slow down. He spits on his fingers and gets them lubricated but also applies pressure to Che's leaking cock - enough that Che grunts and jerks strainingly against him, grinding down on his palm. It's when Hernan brings him fully out and plays with his balls that Che actually vocalizes, loosens, giving Hernan that chance to trace the puckered entrance to his hole and slip in two fingers to the knuckle. He fingers him gently and revels in the way his entire torso braces from the sensation, biceps tensing above his head. When he finds a soft, smooth bundle of flesh, he curls inwards out of curiosity and Che jerks into his hand, crying out and sucking air in through his teeth. Hernan's dick jumps at the sound; he stretches Che open as wide as he can and then pulls out, just to replace his fingers with his tip.

He seats himself in slow. His cock is already slick from Che's saliva, but Che looks like he's breathing through it, taking it well but also discomforted. Hernan tries to make it a little easier by rubbing soothing circles into his abdomen, which is damp and quivering from the tension. Che relaxes a little - and that's when Hernan starts in earnest.

It feels like goddamn heaven. He's never fucked something so wet and tight - every thrust is a push towards an inevitable climax and he revels in it, drinks from the poisoned gourd, water spilling from his lips like a man in the desert. So fucking good he can't think. Hernan fits to his body, touching his chest to Che's shoulder blades and losing it whenever he feels them shift under him, tensing when Hernan hits a certain spot, when he jerks him off just right. Che's groans go reedy in pitch, eyes squeezed shut, as if the pleasure is agonizing, as if he hadn't anticipated this feeling - rocking him, grounding him.

He's so heavy in Hernan's hand. He grins against the back of Che's neck when he reacts desperately to the sensation of being fucked from behind, quivering through each punishing wave of it, thrusting into Hernan's hand and then back onto his cock, unable to get away from the ceaseless stimuli. There's a moment when Hernan listens to glean when the other is going to climax. He can feel Che breathe through it shakily in an effort to keep his shit together, barely cognizant but admirably stoic, even when Hernan twists his fingers around Che's dick head and he bucks forward in response. He couldn't have imagined. Comanche works him up. Makes him wild. He feels it all swell inside of him, feels himself building. And then in succession, Hernan buries himself to the hilt - Che finally breaks and takes it with barely a shred of composure, crying out and tightening around him.

The sensation crashes through him in waves, violent and unstoppable. His balls tighten and then it's over; he comes loudly, and then softly, hitched with emotion and brutal pleasure.

"Say my name," Che tells him through gritted teeth.

Everything is white hot. "Che," he chokes out. "Darius."

Comanche follows him over like a match being struck in the dark.

***

What Shades still doesn't know defeats him. His body is this unwieldy vessel that contains something boundless, always; where the truth and lies converge is the gray area he occupies. Loving but loveless. Sacrificial but selfish. A born leader but as disquieted as a lamb.

Comanche had explained, _I ain't different. Inside, outside._ He knew himself. Never internalized, never projected - all truth laid bare.

Shades is capable of immense hurt - and being hurt, immensely. If he could have knelt down before Comanche and acquiesced, admitted what he had known at one time but had lost in the wreckage of Mariah Dillard's crusade - would this be easier? Would he be able to relinquish his guilt if he knew himself for what he was - forget the fucking bullshit, lose the dogged persistence of his facade, reconcile what was inside with what was outside? Under the interrogation lamp, Shades can't relay a story to Detective Knight that makes sense, even if it is real.

He loved Comanche. In his bones. But the truth seems fickle, now, when weighed against what he's done to suppress it.

_I was blinded by that shit. What does that say about me?_

***

The basement is cool, wicking some of the moisture off their skin as they sit pressed together. Che is against him. Nestled between his ribs, eyes fixated on some place in the far distance, beyond them both. "I been fittin' to read," he says plainly, almost as if all the complicated things were lost from his head.

"Yeah?" Hernan watches him with an amused smile carved on his face. He puts his arm over Che's shoulder and spreads his hand across Che's chest, absently tracing lines of ink from old tattoos. "Why?"

"Been thinkin' about when we get outta this joint. What we gon' need. Some cats ain't got a thought in they head after. I'm tryna elevate that shit." He explains it with a degree of seriousness that Hernan hasn't heard from him for a while. He doesn't know whether to make light of it. 

"Thinking about our next hit?"

Comanche's gaze flickers up to his, eyes opaque with layers of thought. There's a moment where he rests on what Hernan's said to him. "Nah. Stocks."

Hernan snorts at the blase non-criminality of the whole thing. "Tryna go legit, now, huh?"

"I didn't say that, nigga." Hernan feels him inhale, chest rising slow and soft. It lulls him and reinvigorates him - he's tired but drinking it in, the unrealness of the whole ordeal, as if tomorrow it will be back to the way it was. But Che dashes that thought by taking his forearm in his hand; holding it close to his chest. His voice becomes softer, a shade away from vulnerability. "We got two options. If you don't put down, you don't eat. And if you do put down, you get fuckin' eaten."

Hernan follows his line of thought. "So you want to think about the future."

Comanche nods slowly, almost uncertain. "Take back my utility." He pauses. "Reclaim myself."

The prospect earnestly surprises Hernan. Che had never been soft on violence, never expressed that desire. And he had been under the impression that they were both on the same page: that the plan wasn't to be on the streets forever. The plan was to get crazy rich so they didn't even have to deal with the bullshit, anymore. "You don't need to be a house cat to have utility, Che."

"That's whatchu think it's about?"

"I'm saying that you ain't never gonna be anything but a nigga to some people," Hernan explains. "But you still can have money, power, pussy - all that shit."

Comanche's brow furrows into a hard line; he tsks with some level of frustration. Hernan can see his teeth glowing blue in the shadows. _"Fuck_ pussy. I don't need that."

"Yeah? Why are you in here, then?"

"The tendency of the system to shackle the prosperous and intelligent black man," he suggests immediately, as if his armed robbery conviction was just a footnote. There's a second of stoicism and then he cracks up at what he's just said, finding the humor in the space between the truth and the lie. He knows more than Hernan ever could. Keeps it to himself but retains a forthright swagger and a presence of mind that Hernan wants to associate himself with. Behind genuine cunning is scathing self-awareness.

Comanche shakes his head wistfully. "A well-read nigga." His chest rumbles with laughter again, until the comedy of it sours. "That's me. Rotting in this joint. For what, though?"

All of this catches Hernan by surprise, rendering him a little speechless. It reads as a rejection of everything they'd pursued on the outside. Bewildered, he says, "You tell me."

Comanche looks up at him with a gaze that cuts right through. His eyes shine in the dark as he analyzes Hernan's face; it lends profundity and context to his words. He speaks, still watching Hernan carefully. "I needed to care of Mama. Needed to hold that shit down for her."

"What about holding _our_ shit down, Che?" Hernan searches his eyes for some sort of answer. "When we were kids, we dreamed of climbing to the top. We saw what nobody else in our hood saw. How to control the outcome of any given situation and build that up. We made something of ourselves in the streets by _taking_ that shit."

"I'm still gon' do that with you, B." He pauses. "We do what we do to survive. I get that, one hundred. But in here, I ain't surviving."

"You wanna leave the life," Hernan states with plain and cynical distaste.

Comanche narrows his eyes. "Nigga, you ain't _hearin'_ me. I wanna stay outta prison. Goddamn."

"I still don't get it." Slowly, all of these sentiments are being unearthed that Hernan had never even considered as options for either of them. "We could be kings. Don't you see that?"

It seems as if Hernan has said the wrong thing. Comanche falls silent and the air takes on a watery heaviness to it. And then Che is tangling his hand in Hernan's, almost absent from the action, as if they had always been this way. He says, softly, "The only thing I ever seen was you." The room feels like a vacuum until Che smiles, all teeth, eyes softening. "You was so small. Thought you was gonna get y'self killed when you came to school wearing those Jordans."

A laugh erupts from Hernan's mouth. He remembers how his mama saved up for three months to pay for the pair. How Che had defended him against a pack of ravenous middle school boys - although Che had come home with a cracked lip and a bruise on his cheekbone. They'd sat with his mother and eaten chicken nuggets in the kitchen.

Che fixates on Hernan's fingers, holding them between his own and pulling them apart with his eyes, trying to trace the lineage of his growth from then to now. "Your first girl. Jasmine. D'you remember?"

Hernan nods tentatively.

"You was behind her. Wanted her to feel like a queen. Always."

"She was my girl, yeah," Hernan explains, unsure of Che's point. "But that don't last."

"I remember when you told me you loved her. That y'all had gone down on each other in that bunk-ass ride that I stole mad cash to help you pay for."

Hernan doesn't know what to say. The incongruity of being flush against Comanche's body while he speaks about someone Hernan barely could recall being with - especially when Che had been right here, at his side, his whole life - he's speechless. He wants to tell Comanche that he's the only one but the words fall short in his head. He wants to demonstrate it in some way that supersedes all his peace offerings, all his moments of _nearly_ admitting it, all the times he tried to realize the truth within himself but couldn't follow through. He opens his mouth with not a worthy thought in his head and says nothing.

Che finally explains, "I did it 'cuz I'd do anything for you. Anything in this whole damn world." He ponders the thought. "My hands don't work if you ain't close."

It's odd because rationality falls away when he thinks about the past and the future. Like every second they spend here is a moment they never had ten years ago and a moment closer to the end. He wants it all: wealth, power - but without Che, it ain't real. He becomes bloodless, a mirror image of himself, nondimensional. The idea of them being apart strains credulity. Moreso, to acknowledge the space before them and after them would ring false - as if his skin hadn't always stung and ebbed where Che wasn't against him. "You understand how you make me feel, right?" Hernan laughs disbelievingly, almost with delirium. "You ruined every relationship I ever had because I couldn't keep my mind off you. I never could. You - you" - he tries to explain the scope and breadth of it, but struggles, slowly shaking his head in frustration, bewilderment - "You _gotta_ understand."

"That don't matter if we go back to the life." Che's voice is dark. "None of this will mean shit."

"Che," Hernan placates. There's pain in the word. Hernan feels it thrive inside of him, withering the rest. "That's the one damn thing you can't ask."

"Nah. Didn't expect." Che pulls Hernan's fingers close to his mouth and kisses his thumb. He presses his lips to each fingertip, each knuckle. "But never front on me. Never act like you didn't know." Dark eyelashes flutter against Hernan's skin. If one thing could get him to change, gut himself, create someone else in the rubble of what he once was, this is that thing. The shit he wouldn't do for Che. Short fuckin' list.

He considers it, fleetingly. All understanding he's had of himself up until this point dictates that he's gonna be playing the game long after he leaves here. And there is a version of him that imagines their lives together without context - but that isn't real. To indulge in a fantasy would be to subscribe to pretense. It would be unlike them both.

This is real. Their skin so close that Hernan doesn't know whose heartbeat is whose, a calmness now settling over them in the eerie liminal space between morning and night. 

Hernan smiles at Che so tenderly it hurts. Just like when they were kids, _just like how it was before I found this dichotomy, this second self._ "How long," he prompts; maybe it's been forever for him, too. Maybe the sacrifice is in learning you can't shake it and subjecting yourself to the agony anyway. Maybe that's one last thing they'll share.

Che smiles a little at that - like he finds it cute that he knows some shit that Hernan doesn't. "How long do you think?"

Comanche's body is beautiful. Like obsidian. Hernan runs his hand along Che's jaw and neck and stares without hiding it, without pretense; testing how much he can take before he gets sick from the sweetness. 

Seeing that changes Che, compels him. He suddenly admits, "A long ass while."

"You had plans?"

"Nothin' like that, man." Che turns into him and kisses his chest. His tongue swells against him until he drags his teeth there, turning the skin pink. "Nothin' like that."

 


End file.
